DVRCV ADVOCATE | SAFEANDTOGETHER
By David Mandel from
David Mandel & Associates
Email: davidmandel@endingviolence.com
Safe and together
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According to a new model from the United States, the best way to assist
children who are exposed to the behaviour of a domestic violence
perpetrator is to keep them safe and together with the non-offending
parent.
inbrief
›› We need to see the
links between the
perpetrator’s behaviour
towards his partner and
his behaviour towards his
children
›› Child welfare
interventions should
partner with the non-
offending parent to keep
children safe
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Domestic violence perpetrators
can harm children emotionally and
physically, in direct and indirect ways.
Research indicates that, in many
homes, domestic violence and child
maltreatment overlap. However, our
systems still struggle to integrate this
understanding and there remains a gap
between the domestic violence and
child maltreatment fields.
The Safe and Together model improves
competencies and collaboration in
cases involving children exposed to
the behaviour of a domestic violence
perpetrator.1 The model aims to shift
traditional assumptions made in child
welfare interventions, as these hamper
our ability to fully assess the impact of
the perpetrator’s pattern of behaviour
on family functioning and safety.
These assumptions include:
1. seeing the perpetrator’s pattern of
behaviour towards his adult partner
separately from his behaviour
towards his children
2. focusing on the family’s living
arrangements and the couple’s
relationship status as proxies for
safety, particularly child safety,
instead of assessing his pattern
of behaviours regardless of family
living arrangements and relationship
status
3. ignoring or minimising the
perpetrator’s role as a parent and
co-parent, and holding him to a
lower standard of parenting than his
female partner.
These misconceptions affect our
practice in a number of ways.
We miss seeing the links: When
we don’t make the links between a
perpetrator’s behaviour towards his
adult partner and his behaviour towards
his children, it undercuts the quality
of our assessments of child safety.
We often fail to ask questions about
a perpetrator’s coercive control as it
relates to his children. For example,
we may miss exploring whether he
has threatened to withhold financial
support for the children, emotionally
manipulated the children to pressure
their mother to take him back, used
the children to spy on their mother,
interfered with their receiving medical
attention or therapy, or threatened
to take the children away from their
mother through kidnapping them,
or using the family courts or child
welfare. Even when we are fully aware
of the controlling behaviours that a
perpetrator directs at his partner,
we often fail to articulate how this
has interfered with the needs of the
children. For example, we may fail to
explore how a perpetrator’s obsessive

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jealousy has impaired the children’s
contact with their extended family or
their participation in activities outside
the home.
Her choices become the focus: Our
practice has often equated getting
the perpetrator out of the home
with improving child safety. This
reinforces a focus on the choices of
the adult survivor to stay or leave
the relationship, and stops us from
considering what we need to know
about the perpetrator’s tactics
over time and through shifts in the
relationship. ‘Is she going to stay with
him?’ becomes the focal point of the
conversations about child safety, versus
Our practice has often
equated getting the
perpetrator out of the
home with improving
child safety.
‘What do we know about his pattern of
behaviour including how he interacts
with the children?’ We know that ending
a relationship or leaving a home may
be the most dangerous time for a
survivor and her children. However,
EDITION 2 | SPRING / SUMMER 2013
Safe and TogetherTM Principles
1 Keeping child Safe and TogetherTM with non-offending parent
Safety Healing from trauma Stability and nurturance
2 Partnering with non-offending parent as default position
Efficient Effective Child-centred
3 Intervening with perpetrator to reduce risk and harm to child
Engagement Accountability Courts
(C) 2011 David Mandel & Associates LLC More information on the Safe and Together model at www.endingviolence.com
those concerned with the safety and home with a criminal order of protection
wellbeing of children often overlook the are rarely given orders regarding their
perpetrator’s continued access to the financial or other obligations towards
children after separation and the risk it their children. In reality, a perpetrator’s
represents. arrest reduces his responsibilities
towards his children. He can take the
We don’t see the violence as a
family car, not pay the rent or mortgage,
perpetrator issue: While we assume
and not supervise his children, all the
that paedophiles carry their behaviour
while hiding behind the court order that
pattern with them as they move from
removed him from his home. The court
one household to another, we rarely talk
intervention opens the door for another
about domestic violence perpetrators
potential lever for him to use against his
in this way. We don’t treat a perpetrator
partner or ex-partner.
who has exposed children to violence
in one home as a risk to the children of We focus on the mother’s ‘failure to
his new partner. This is the result of the protect’: Child welfare and child-focused
continuing misconception that domestic systems have adopted a ‘failure to
violence is a relationship issue, rather protect’ approach to domestic violence.
than a perpetrator issue that needs to This places the burden for child safety
be assessed across partners, homes almost exclusively on the shoulders
and children. of the non-offending parent, ignores
the perpetrator, and can increase
We ignore the perpetrator’s role
as a parent: Woven throughout our
the dangerousness of the situation.
The mother’s willingness to end the
conversations about domestic violence
and children are our double standards
relationship, call law enforcement
or pursue a civil order of protection
around parenting. Across cultures,
is used as the yardstick to measure
communities and countries, there are
drastically different expectations of
whether she is being protective of
her children. While these are useful
mothers and fathers as parents. We
strategies in some circumstances, the
automatically assume that mothers are
heavy dependence of child welfare
responsible for the day-to-day care of
on these steps often forces women
the children and for attending to their
to choose between facing increased
emotional needs, while we don’t place
danger from the perpetrator and major
the same expectations on fathers.
life disruption, or losing their children to
Domestic violence perpetrators who
the state.
are fathers often benefit from those
double standards. For example, fathers
who are arrested and ordered out of a
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 DVRCV ADVOCATE | SAFEANDTOGETHER
Safe and TogetherTM Critical Components
Perpetrator’s pattern
of coercive control
Role of substance
abuse, mental health,
culture and other
socio-economic
factors
Adverse impact of
the perpetrator’s
behaviour on the
child
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(C) 2011 David Mandel & Associates LLC More information on the Safe and Together model at www.endingviolence.com
The impact of the model
Initial data on the model is
promising. In northeast Florida, its
implementation has had an impact on
child maltreatment cases where there
is domestic violence. The model has
contributed to large reductions in the
number of child neglect cases, and in
the number of children placed in out-
of-home care. In Connecticut, a survey
of child welfare supervisors found
that 50 per cent of the respondents
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Actions taken by the
perpetrator to harm
the child
Full spectrum of
the non-offending
parent’s efforts to
promote the safety
and well being of the
child
We don’t identify the survivor’s other
safety planning strategies: The ‘failure
to protect’ model rests on a double
standard we hold about mothers,
fathers and parenting. We don’t expect
fathers to be involved in getting their
kids up in the morning, feeding them or
taking them to medical appointments.
At the same time, we don’t give an
abused mother any kind of credit
for all her parenting in a foxhole—for
continuing to meet the children’s
physical and emotional needs in the
midst of her partner’s abuse, which
demands her focus, drains her energy
and disrupts the family’s normal
routine. We don’t identify, document
and value all the non-traditional safety
planning she does—the things that don’t
involve the police, courts or separation.
Improving our responses
A good response to domestic
indicated positive changes in
outcomes for families as a result
of attending the Safe and Together
training. These outcomes include an
increased ability to enable children
to remain safely in the home, tailored
referrals that better meet the needs of
the family, more support for domestic
violence survivors and greater
accountability for the domestic
violence perpetrator.
violence starts with seeing the day-
to-day strengths of domestic violence
survivors, holding perpetrators to high
standards as parents, and keeping
a keen focus on the behaviours they
engage in to harm children. The Safe
and Together model highlights these
areas. It supports competencies such
as interviewing and documentation,
as well as cross-system collaboration
in domestic violence cases involving
children. While it has primarily been
implemented in a child welfare context,
it has implications for professionals in
family courts, criminal courts, mental
health and in other services that work
with families.
The model has three key principles for
interventions to improve child safety
and wellbeing in the context of domestic
violence. These principles are:
1. keeping the child safe and together
with the non-offending parent
2. partnering with the non-offending
parent, and
3. intervening with the perpetrator of
domestic violence.
These principles highlight the
shared interests of the child welfare
community, domestic violence
advocates, and survivors of domestic
violence. They describe building an
alliance with the non-offending parent
around a shared concern for the safety
and wellbeing of the children.
This partnership is more likely to
succeed when the child welfare system
and others collaborate to intervene with
the perpetrator. A heavier focus on the
perpetrator through direct engagement
with him, developing case plans to
address his behaviour, and active
coordination with law enforcement and
the criminal courts shifts the attention
and blame from the survivor. It can also
improve how the survivor perceives
child welfare interventions.
The Safe and Together model outlines
five critical areas of focus that support
good case practice and decision-making
(see graphic). The first component of the
model is to start with the perpetrator’s
behaviour. Case conversations should
examine the perpetrator’s pattern of
coercive control, particularly the actions
he has taken to harm the child. Using
the framework of coercive control rather
than exclusively looking for physical
domestic violence improves risk and
safety assessments.2 This broader

understanding of domestic violence
enables us to identify the range of
coercive and controlling tactics used by
domestic violence perpetrators—such as
abusing or neglecting the children, using
them as weapons against their mother,
or undermining the mother’s parenting.
It provides a context for understanding
the survivor’s decision-making, and
strengthens child welfare’s assessment
of the perpetrator’s adverse impact on
the child. This makes it easier to draw
a straight-line connection between the
perpetrator’s choices and the child’s
safety and wellbeing.
Another critical component of the
model is to comprehensively assess
the adult survivor’s efforts to promote
her children’s safety and wellbeing. This
means that child welfare professionals
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would consider all the things that the
survivor does to maintain her child’s
routine, provide nurturance and
guidance, and attend to her child’s basic
needs in the face of the perpetrator’s
destabilising, neglectful and abusive
behaviours. The identification and
validation of all of the survivor’s
protective efforts and strengths can
create stronger partnerships in child
welfare interventions.
The final two critical components of the
model focus on identifying the effect
of the perpetrator’s behaviour on his
children and integrating an assessment
of the role of substance abuse, mental
health issues and culture into our
understanding of the case. This means
that, in cross-system discussions, the
shared concern becomes ‘How can we
work together to reduce the risk that the
perpetrator represents to the family?’
Finding common ground
Domestic violence advocates
are uniquely aware of the impact
perpetrators have on adult and child
survivors. While counselling, advocacy
and refuge services are primarily
provided to the adult survivor, they have
profound benefits for the children.
Despite their shared interest in child
safety, domestic violence advocates
and child welfare professionals have
sometimes struggled to find common
ground regarding hot topics like
confidentiality, service delivery and
our expectations of survivors. The
Safe and Together model is a child-
centered model that provides an
opportunity for professionals to use a
EDITION 2 | SPRING / SUMMER 2013
shared language and to trust in each
other’s skills to assess family needs
and safety risks. For example, in one [The model] provides
community, the model was used as an opportunity for
a framework for examining systems’
responses in a case that involved a professionals to use a
domestic violence homicide. Domestic
violence advocates involved in the
shared language and
case reported that the model enabled to trust in each other’s
a potentially challenging and tense
situation to remain focused and skills ...
productive. In a number of jurisdictions
in the USA, joint trainings on the model
have helped facilitate partnerships
between domestic violence and child
welfare professionals. The training
has enhanced the ability of domestic
violence professionals to articulate
and advocate for the needs of child
and adult survivors, and has provided
additional strategies for supporting
survivors’ strengths and protective
capacities, and for focusing on the
perpetrator’s choices as a context for
working with survivors.
David Mandel has
Endnotes
worked in the domestic
1
The name of the model derives from the idea violence field in the USA
that the safety, stability and emotional wellbeing for 25 years. His training
of children exposed to perpetrator behaviour is and consulting focuses
ideally served by our efforts to keep them safe and on improving systemic
together with the domestic violence survivor. responses to domestic
violence when children
2
The coercive control framework, as described
are involved, and also
by Evan Stark, conceptualises domestic violence
on responsible fatherhood. His
as a constellation of non-physical and physical
organisation developed the Safe and
tactics aimed at controlling a female partner. See
Together model.
Stark (2007) Coercive Control: How Men Entrap
Women in Personal Life, Oxford University Press, This article is adapted from an article
New York. originally written for the National
Domestic Violence Fatality Review
Initiative, Flagstaff, Arizona
www.ndvfri.org
For more information go to
www.endingviolence.com.
Safe and Together - Melbourne Workshops
No to Violence and DVRCV present two ›› Safe engagement and assessment:
workshops on the Safe and Together working with fathers and families to
model, presented by US trainer David support safe, positive parenting
Mandel. – 15th November 2013
›› Safe and Together: A child-centred
approach to the intersection of To register, contact No To Violence on
intimate partner violence and child info@ntv.org.au
maltreatment
- 14th November 2013
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